mned me--for what?
Would any reasonable explanation make an impression on you in your
present frame of mind? I don't want to marry you if you can't trust
me. Why, I couldn't--I _wouldn't_--marry you any time, or any place,
under those conditions, no matter how much I may foolishly care for
you."

"There's just one thing, Hazel," Barrow persisted stubbornly. "There
must have been something between you and Bush. He sent flowers to you,
and I myself saw when he was hurt he sent his carriage to bring you to
his house. And then he leaves you this money. There was something
between you, and I want to know what it was. You're not helping
yourself by getting on your dignity and talking about my not trusting
you instead of explaining these things."

"A short time ago," Hazel told him quietly, "Mr. Bush asked me to marry
him. I refused, of course. He--"

"You refused!" Barrow interrupted cynically. "Most girls would have
jumped at the chance."

"Jack!" she protested.

"Well," Barrow defended, "he was almost a millionaire, and I've got
nothing but my hands and my brain. But suppose you did refuse him.
How does that account for the five thousand dollars?"

"I think," Hazel flung back passionately, "I'll let you find that out
for yourself. You've said enough now to make me hate you almost. Your
very manner's an insult."

"If you don't like my manner--" Barrow retorted stormily. Then he cut
his sentence in two, and glared at her. Her eyes glistened with
slow-welling tears, and she bit nervously at her under Up. Barrow
shrugged his shoulders. The twin devils of jealousy and distrust were
riding him hard, and it flashed over Hazel that in his mind she was
prejudged, and that her explanation, if she made it, would only add
fuel to the flame. Moreover, she stood in open rebellion at being, so
to speak, put on the rack.

She turned abruptly and left him. What did it matter, anyway? She was
too proud to plead, and it was worse than useless to explain.

Even so, womanlike, she listened, expecting to hear Jack's step
hurrying up behind. She could not imagine him letting her go like
that. But he did not come, and when, at a distance of two blocks, she
stole a backward glance, he had disappeared.

She returned to the boarding-house. The parlor door stood wide, and
the curious, quickly averted glance of a girl she knew sent her
quivering up to her room. Safe in that refuge, she sat down by the
window, with